Game Loop Philly Highlights

Although I don’t plan to start a career in game development, I attended the Game Loop Philly un-conference today. I thought I’d feel a little out of place, but I was pleasantly surprised by the breadth of topics. Each session was applicable to either my work or personal life and I met a lot of great people! Here are the highlights from the sessions I attended today.

Misconceptions of Programming Languages

There is no universal or best language, just what is best suited for solving a class of problems.

You should master three languages in different families (e.g. learn mix of procedural, scripting, functional, and object oriented languages); expands your thinking about problems and ways to solve them.

Learn what you can do (e.g. syntax, features) and what you should (e.g. style, how to solve problems) do with the language.

Don’t speak only “one dialect” – solve the problem the right way in that language (e.g. don’t write procedural code in Ruby).

Languages are always evolving, so keep up with the new features and patterns.

When learning the language, read other people’s code and write code to help you learn it faster (think immersion and speaking/writing a new spoken language).

Serious Games / Sustainability

What are serious games? Games with purpose, value driven, teach, behavior modification, real world application.

How do we learn? Trial & error, experiences, play = experience without serious consequences; learning from experience sticks with you better than studying for a test.

Brainstorming for a compelling sustainability app – shared resources with a tight economy, provide rewards for leaving some the resource alone, make long term cause & effect obvious, tie in morality and social justice to game decisions, balance of long and short term goals.

Game might not be enough; how do you reach people who don’t already value sustainability? How do you foster long-term interest in the issues? How do you change values – not just teaching information?

Android Roundtable

I lead a roundtable about developing for the Android platform, some topics that we discussed:

Benefits of the platform and how it’s a great time to be involved with Android development

X-Platform Dev: Does It Work?

Need to customize for specific platforms, use different extensions, checks for platform type

Can abstract game play and mechanics into reusable components (keep menus, upgrades, & customizations separate)

Interfaces and devices are evolving at a fast pace, no silver bullet that lets you write once and deploy everywhere

Coexistence of Art & Code

Knowing both programming and art principles gives you a seat at the “opposite” table; gives your voice more weight

Creative vs. engineering is a false dichotomy – both are creative acts; corporate hierarchies (e.g. you have to be one or the other) and physical work environments (e.g. design on an entirely different floor) can entrench it

Reach across the aisle! Communication is key, go out to lunch, strive to understand the nature of the other side’s work, develop a common language

I asked how to find interaction designers and artists for Ship It Society projects; suggestions included reaching out to college students and design meetup groups, social cross-pollination